“Wait until I make you one of my delicious kale smoothies,” someone wrote on the Google doc our group of volunteers had filled out so we could take turns delivering food to an acquaintance in the hospital. Of course a person having a major health crisis lying in a sickbed is the perfect candidate for a kale smoothie: too weak to swat the proffered drink away, perhaps dehydrated and desperate enough to try to take a sip, the way lost hikers in the desert try to drink their own urine. And someone newly and unexpectedly admitted into a hospital is far too confused and anxious to say, “Oh honey, there is no such thing as a delicious kale smoothie.”
At this point, we all need less kale in our lives. Many of us are invited to more than our fair share of queer potlucks in which more than one person brings kale salad. These people have to be stopped– or abide by the following rule: if you bring salad to the potluck, salad is the only thing you are allowed to eat at the potluck.
I’m not one of these folks who will suggest that you forego kale and eat a nice side of beef instead. I’m a decaf-green-tea-drinking, raw-food-eating, vegan-baking stereotype who is sick of kale being in every damn thing, the way oat bran was in every damn thing when I was younger. Eventually oat bran petered out, but kale is still going strong.
People are enamored with kale for much the same reason they once were with oat bran: kale is the Cliffs Notes version of healthful eating. Back in the day, I can remember sub shops had the option of a “heart-healthy” oat bran roll. The only thing besides the bread that was “healthy” was the olive oil poured onto it before being smothered with cold cuts and cheese. Now a serving or two of kale gives people a kind of nutritional “get out of jail free” card, so they can eat pulled-pork and bacon exclusively for the rest of the week.
The same people who wax rhapsodic about the place with the ham-and-egg cheeseburger will, in the next breath, talk about a very different restaurant, the one which always has a line out the door and a name like “Vital Vitality!” or “Green and GOOD.” They’ll say to me, “You’ll absolutely love it,” though the food there is the opposite of the type of cuisine that elicits love.
The “green,” “GOOD” patrons (most of whom are women, as they are in cupcake shops and artisanal chocolate cafés) are, instead, looking for a little absolution for the beef chimichangas and eggs Benedict they ate the Sunday before. So they have a workday lunch of punishment food, either a “healthy” wrap on a bed of kale, or a pile of assorted greens — always including plenty of kale — with shredded carrots and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, as a treat.
In my city the restaurant group that opened one of these places also runs the sit-down, fancy, foodie place (also always packed) which serves fare that might have appeared on the table of a Middle-European baron 150 years ago: wild boar and everything but dessert roasted in duck fat. I suspect some of their customers visit both establishments on the same day.
When I am in one of the “vital” places I can practically hear the diners, as they crunch their way through their meals thinking, “Something so fibrous, so hard to choke down must be good for me.” The end of the meal brings sighs of relief and maybe a silent prayer of thanks that they don’t have to eat this way all the time.
The near-deification of kale came to be because of the extreme “cleanses” and “clean eating” (the old name was “crash diets”) which people (again, mostly women) undergo after they binge on artery-busting foods. The popularity of over-the-top, clean and “super” foods make finding actual, delicious food harder for those of us who are trying to eat “healthy,” but don’t wish to atone for a lost weekend of pork bellies. People who serve and sell “healthy” food assume all of us have taken a vow of (at least temporary) asceticism.
On a hundred degree day, I walked across a bridge that offered no shade and then, like a mirage, a cart offering frozen sweets appeared. When I looked at the menu I saw the ice-cream flavors were chocolate, coconut and butterfinger, and the sorbets were lemon and peach. I might have had been in the early stages of heat stroke, but I was thinking clearly enough to know: lemon sorbet is not an adequate substitute for chocolate ice cream. I would have become violent if the cart had offered what a Google search tells me does indeed exist: kale sorbet.
At a function where the entree choices were beef or chicken I ordered a special vegetarian plate and ended up with a plate full of…vegetables without sauce, seasoning or discernable flavor. I guess I should have been grateful the kitchen staff hadn’t just set down a leafy tree branch for me to nibble on.
When famed primate researcher (and one of my earliest crushes) Dame Jane Goodall was raising awareness and funds for the animals she studied, she complained that she often had to sit down to a spartan vegetable plate too. She was trying to shake some money out of the people who arranged these dinners, so she probably didn’t say to them, “Just because I spent most of my life studying wild chimpanzees doesn’t mean I want to eat like one.”
When I tell people I don’t like kale, they make attempts to convert me, like I’m the lone, unsaved person in the revival tent. They ask, “But have you tried kale chips?” Yes, I have and I’ve enjoyed them because, like their delicate, crispy texture, their taste: “nacho,” “teriyaki” or fake-but natural-”cheeze,” is nothing like kale’s.
“But they love kale in Portugal,” kale evangelists say. I’ve never been to Portugal, but I have seen art films that take place there. I remember one scene in which farm laborers sang, to the rhythmic hack of their hoes against the clay-colored, hard ground of a steep hill, a haunting song that expressed the vain hope they might be able to grow something besides kale. At least, I think that’s what they were singing about: I don’t speak Portuguese. Also Portuguese people wouldn’t have been eating kale all these years if they hadn’t combined it with sausage to mask the taste.
I’ve heard all the cooking tips: “Just sauté it in olive oil with a little minced garlic and salt.” In the long-past days before “Eat More Kale” t-shirts, before the farmers’ market became overrun with pastry vendors and soap makers, I used to make the same recommendation to the people who wondered aloud how to prepare kale. Then one night during a home-cooked dinner, I gagged on a mouthful and realized the olive oil and the garlic weren’t the problem. I had a similar epiphany some years before, when I gave up on fat-free, fruit-juice sweetened, whole grain, carob-flavored, health food store cookies because, no matter how “healthy” they were, they still tasted like they were dipped in shit.
I worry we will never be rid of kale because kale as a crop deludes urban backyard farmers into thinking they have a talent for growing things. They don’t realize most insects would rather feast on poisonous plants than eat kale. And like Michael Myers in Halloween, kale won’t die no matter how much effort one puts into killing it.
One spring, after a particularly cold and snowy New England winter, a friend reported the kale she had neglected to harvest from her garden in the fall was still good, if anyone wanted it. I don’t doubt that she was right, though I might quibble with her definition of “good” — and “still.” I noticed no one took her up on her offer.
Tags: baron food, food trolling, kale, ren jender, vegetables, whimsically held positions
I… like kale.
It is a perfectly acceptable side to a roast dinner. Boiled, then covered in butter.
But otherwise, yes. It can go in the food-related ‘disappearance bin’. Along with all ‘punishment’ foods – the foods that trick us into thinking they’re healthy because they’re so awful. Eating should not be a punishment. There are plenty of delicious, healthy, green vegetables that don’t exfoliate your throat on the way down.
“boiled then covered in butter”
WHO MADE YOU THIS WAY
MY FATHER, MALLORY
He was a ‘local produce, cooked in season’ man long before it was fashionable
Kale is perhaps the only vegetable that I always blanch* before I do anything else with it. “Oh no!” say the people who are using a half-cup of kale as a token of health, “you’ll cook all the vitamins out of it!” And I’m sure they’re half-right: after I blanch kale in fast-boiling water for 5 minutes, the water is a swampy green with a rich mineral smell.
But blanched kale is tender and toothsome and delicious. And there’s a hell of a lot more nutrition in something so tasty that I eat a whole plateful than in something I push around my plate and then throw out.
*I say “blanched” instead of “boiled” because
A. the ice-water bath is a crucial part of the process, stopping the cooking while the kale is still bright green, before it turns Swamp-Thing drab;
B. people don’t recoil from “blanched” the way they do from “boiled.”
A pinch of baking soda in the water helps with color, but can be detrimental to flavour and nutrition. The water should be high temperature slightly alkaline, because chlorophyllase, the enzyme whose activity you want to avoid, is most active in the presence of acid and at temperatures ranging from moderately high to just below boiling, where it is deactivated.
Light cooking is generally good for nutrient release in hearty greens (bioavailability of iron etc). You could also cook them in a ziploc bag, if colour isn’t as important, if you want to preserve flavour, like http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-kal…
I don’t care so much about nutrition but I AM too lazy to boil water so I find a fast trick that kills the bitterness without much work is to marinate the kale in rice vinegar.
And by marinate I mean dump some kale in a colander, shake on a bunch of rice vinegar and let it sit while you cook other things, and then pick up the colander and shale the excess vinegar out before dumping the kale in a pan of hot oil (also good: bacon fat) and garlic.
yes! And you can drink that green mineral-y smelling water, or if you don’t want to, then add it to soups and stock when you’re cooking something in stock. As I learned from M.F. K. Fisher, who would know.
You know, I’ve read that a hundred times in How to Cook a Wolf, but I only tried it once, years and years ago, to revolting effect.
That’s not leftovers-squeamishness talking. I routinely make broth from the scraped-off bits and knobby trims of vegetables. But this kale run-off was inedible: bitter and deeply tangy in a most unpleasant way.
But I’m reconsidering: maybe it was just that batch of greens, and maybe I should try it again.
I like a kale stamppot because it’s one of the few pleasant Dutch foods (the others being desserts or bar snacks), but that’s mostly because the kale part is masked with mashed potatoes and bacon and gravy and a sausage. (Still though, for some reason the kale version is better than the other versions.)
Also, lemon sorbet is great. But not when you want chocolate ice cream. When you want lemon sorbet because it’s way too hot and sweaty out and you like sour things and anything cream-based makes you feel more thirsty, then lemon sorbet is great.
My mother-in-law makes an awesome white bean/tomato/kale/other veggies soup – but it sure doesn’t taste great because of the kale.
Also, exactly my thoughts on lemon sorbet. If it’s too hot out, I only want ice cream if I can get a big glass of water as well.
YES. If I was in that situation described above, I probably would have gone for the sorbet because 100F is too hot for creamy things, but icy things are perfect.
I am so glad you defined stamppot for me, because I read about it in that Dutch park-cleaning article, and was trying to avoid the rabbit hole of internet recipe googling.
Stamppot is basically mashed potatoes mixed with other vegetables. Kale is traditional, as is endive leaves, sauerkraut, and spinach, there’s also a version called hutspot with carrots and onions that I don’t eat because I’m allergic to carrots. Or you can put in whatever vegetable, really. I’ve even seen some with curry powder in it. Also often you put in bits of bacon, but my vegetarian Dutch friend makes stamppot without them (and the cheaper ready-made stamppots at the supermarket doesn’t have the bacon either). I actually really like them- they’re simple, but filling and hearty in the gross damp winters. I mean, who doesn’t like mashed potatoes?
I’m glad you mentioned the Portuguese kale thing. I was gonna say, I am Portuguese, and I’ve only ever willingly eaten kale in Caldo Verde, which is really just Linguiça and Potato Soup, with super fine kale shreds to make it pretty. Delicious all together, but that sheen of linguiça grease says it’s FAR from healthy.
And at home, I totally cheat and use spinach instead.
Haha, yeah.
Caldo Verde represent. I made some last week to cure my cold. Are you Azorean? Our family is on my mom’s side.
Portuguese food isn’t really exemplary peasant health food. Its not like when people say, “eat mediterreanean, its so healthy! You will live forever!”. It’s meat, carbs and light dustings of vegetables, not lots of greens and light drizzles of olive oil. Think eastern europe with a bit more hot pepper. Salad isn’t something that graces the table at family gatherings.
Here’s what my grandma makes that are her traditional family delicacies:
1. Biscoitos. Very dry, plain, to be had with coffee, or used on teething babies. Delicious, but basically like a stale sugar cookie.
2. Ginjinha- essentially the highest proof alcohol you can find, left alone with cherries for a year to turn into a cherry liquor.
3. Malasaada. Fried dough covered in sugar. To quote my grandma, “fiy it in lard or they’ll be greasy”.
That’s it, that’s what my family has passed on as our tradition in america. i don’t know if you noticed, but nary a vegetable can be found. Oh wait, no, my grandma also goes in for a “traditional” soup that is called Elbow macaroni soup, so…probably canon from Sao Miguel. I can imagine my ancestors picking fresh Portuguese elbow macaronis right off the vines on the terraces. It has kidney beans, and one carrot in it. Plus traditional packaged onion soup mix, a pile of chourico, and potatoes, and elbow macaronis. So I guess there’s your super healthy example.
SoPu only, though. NoPu is soooo college, lol.
I associate Portuguese food with the sweet bread we used to get in Cape Cod and have for breakfast, which absolutely rules, but is probably not actually “healthy” or anything.
Oh, hey, my dad is also from Sao Miguel! We are probably vaguely related somehow. It feels like everyone on that island is related to me, which is embarrassing when I find out that the attractive person I was checking out on the street is in fact my second or third cousin.
My great grandma was from Faial, and Great Gramps was from Sao Miguel, so only half related, I’m sure it’s all good. We could marry if we needed to. Also I’ve never been, but I want to go so badly and look up distant relatives and nose around.
Azorean (Sao Jorge specifically) and Madeira. What you call Malasaada, my grandma calls Filhoz, and they’re for Easter only. Also, the rice pudding with lemon and egg yolk and cinnamon, the lemon butter cookies, really anything that’s mostly made of fat starch and sugar. And for the longest time, the only reason I’d set foot near a church was during the Holy Spirit festival for the free Sopas and wine.
I just made a kale, white bean and chorizo stew last night. But I had to cook it for far longer than it was supposed to go (because I forgot that soaking beans is not the same thing as cooking them) so the kale just sort of gave up and slumped into submission. That was fine.
Raw kale can fuck right off.
Agree 100%, and I love your description. Yes, kale must be cooked into submission (preferably with lots of onion) to be good.
kale sorbet sounds pretty delicious.
Idunno, the idea of kale sorbet makes me viscerally angry.
i always like the idea of vegetable desserts.
My veggie desserts start and end with carrot cake, but I am open to new ideas. What else lives in that category?
Chocolate zucchini cake? Tastes like chocolate cake, but the zucchini keeps it moist.
Chocolate zucchini cake. Sweet lord in heaven, do I love a good chocolate zucchini cake.
Yes, zucchini cake! Also pumpkin anything, sweet potato pie, tomato jam/cake/granita, cucumber mint sorbet, avocado milkshake. I had amazing sweetcorn whiskey ice cream once.
There’s a bakery here that makes sweetcorn cookies. I need to get my hands on some.
Yeah, I like to think of vegetable desserts are basically just subverting the innate healthfulness of vegetables. Vegetable subversion. Queering the crisper. BRING ON THE KALE ICE CREAM.
QUEERING THE CRISPER
FOREVER.
Ahhh and zucchini bread ! The one I love is a little loaf quick bread, with grated zucchini in the batter, so it almost dissolves, and lots of spices in. It’s wonderful and gooey, almost like gingerbread-lite.
I’ve also had sweet corn ice cream and it was so good. Like winter comfort creamed corn, but made for summer.
Beet red velvet cake exists, but is not great. I don’t like red velvet cake normally, so maybe I’m not the intended audience.
Carrot halwa! Traditional Indian dessert made from shredded carrots with milk (I tend to use coconut milk), sugar, and cardamom. Great to top with craisins (not-so-traditional) or mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, pistaschios). There are deep red carrots that come into season during the winter in northern India that are sweet and gorgeous, but halwa is still pretty tasty with regular carrots. I think you can also use/ add shredded beets, but I haven’t eaten one like that.
I could be okay with that, though I don’t know if I’d order it over regular ice cream. I’ve had olive oil gelato and garlic ice cream and liked both, though, so my tolerance for savory-food-based frozen desserts is high.
I… also like kale. In salads, in smoothies, as chips. I genuinely like it. However, I also like the smell of skunks and used to eat the wild ivy growing on the back fence of my kindergarten playground, so that probably tells you a lot about my food preferences.
I love raw kale, much more than cooked kale. I, too, like the smell of skunks.
I used to like the smell of skunks, until my dog got skunked right after Thanksgiving. Concentrated eau de skunk smells like burning and despair.
I was going to say “what the hell is this kale smoothie crap, you cover kale in olive oil and salt and grill it till its crunchy” but you beat me to it so Ill just say that everything is great with olive oil, salt and garlic.
This post made me go to the supermarket to buy kale and they were sold out! Is that part of the trolling?
I was going to say that the one way kale actually is good is with olive oil and garlic. But then I realized that cardboard would probably be good with enough olive oil and garlic so I guess that doesn’t prove anything.
Smoothies? Cleanses? Feh, no wonder people get turned off.
I agree, it’s not the most pleasant gourmet experience one might have, and I worry about anyone who would call it “delicious,” but raw kale is pretty much my go-to veggie for dinners at home these days, and has been so for years. Stays good a long time, is super-nutritious, and goes well with Indian food in my experience (Madhur Jaffrey FTW). Small quantities are the way to go, though, and those are really all you need.
If you just can’t deal with kale, a much more appealing substitute is bok choy. Love those little baby boks. You have to cook ’em though, and I’m lazy.
Broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are really the only vegetables that offend me deeply these days. The SMELL. Thank Bog I somehow lost most of my childhood finickiness – that list used to be a lot longer.
There was an episode of Twilight Zone where a criminal referred to money as “kale” and I’d like that to be how I hear about kale from now on.
Okay this was double-duty food trolling though. You can pry my pulled pork and my duck fat from my cold dead hands.
Preach. If it wouldn’t give an English baron gout, I don’t want to eat it.
This sounds like a great basis for a fad diet.
Paleo, just fast forwarded a few years.
no those monsters willfully eschew bread
Grains are for peasants.
I would be disappointed if pulled pork and duck fat (pulled pork made with duck fat) wasn’t already featured on a paleo site.
yeah that restaurant sounded awesome I’d just go there without the repenting afterwards (I’m bad at repenting).
Same. I’m not a fan of being made to feel ashamed about what I eat anyway, so repenting is a thing I don’t bother with.
Yess! I’m a vegetarian and try to be healthy insofar as I, like, order sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Lots of people see this and assume that I’ll be really interested in whatever life-imitates-Portlandia food fad they’re currently into. What’s wrong with the normal-tasting vegetables that I’m already eating?
FUCK KALE; I tried to cook it in a pan with some olive oil and garlic and it was a waste of garlic and olive oil because nothing can cover up that taste. I also hate most dark leafy greens, which hopefully is my body’s way of saying I am full up on iron?
I’ve never tried kale. I don’t think I’m in danger of trying it either, since a bag of 20% dried shreds and 80% air costs like 7 bucks.
Really? Where I live a pound of kale is 99 cents, which is partially why I eat it (so cheap!). It doesn’t come in a bag through, maybe that’s the difference if it’s prewashed and cut? If you just go to the aisle of the grocery where all the veggies are just bundled up under that mister thing you can find it there for cheap. However you cook it, marinate it in a little rice vinegar first (after I do that I usually sautee it in olive oil), it’s the most important step.
Ohh I mean the chip version. I haven’t got time for labor-intensive veggies so I haven’t checked that out.
Ah ok. I’m on a budget so I like kale because it’s cheap and I only have to pan fry it a little (after dumping on a handful of vinegar). I have never sean the chips but that’s insane that people charge so much just because they baked it and put it in a bag for you.
Okay, I’m going to be That Person, but I make a killer kale salad that has converted more than one kale-hater, to the point where they asked for seconds.
To be fair, I used to view it with this weird mix of horror and disdain, but that was partly because I went to college with a lot of “Eat More Kale” hippies who wouldn’t shut up about it, and partly because the only way I ever encountered it was as a sad, steamed, utterly unseasoned afterthought in the dining hall. But I swear, if you prep it right, it isn’t fibrous or tough at all. It tastes GOOD. Haters gonna hate.
(no seriously but i love these food trolling posts, especially when the author COMMITS. A+ would rage again)
Okay, but what else is in the salad?
There’s usually lots of grated parmesan, olive oil, lemon, and black pepper, and then I change it up based on what I have on hand. Lately I’ve been doing apples and toasted almonds.
This is yet another example of When Cheese Makes Everything Alright.
The kale salad I’m eating right now has cubes of panfried paneer, some slivered almonds, and some celery, as that’s what I had in my fridge last night, dressed with a heavy-on-the-garlic-and-mustard-vinaigrette. I’m a defender of kale, but I’ll be the first to admit it needs an “aggressive” dressing.
I made one once that converted a vegetable hater, not just a kale hater! It was epic. (quinoa, pomegranate seeds, avocado, citrus, umm… some other things probably…)
I realize that I define “healthy” differently than most people, but some of the assumptions in this piece are pretty toxic. I can’t quite tell if these are the opinions of the author or if the author is assuming that this is how pro-kale people think, but either way, if you’re going to dismantle fucked-up aspects of the way we think about certain foods, could we maybe go further?
Completely agree. This was not funny to me.
Reminding myself that the word “trolling” is in the title, but also pretty sure we’re never going to see one of these posts about bacon.
I will write that bacon post
(I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way)
I want to offer my support to bacon-haters everywhere. When people find out that I don’t eat meat they’re always like “but… bacon?!?!” to which I say that bacon is actually the one meat I don’t miss, in part because it is smelly and in part because jesus, shut up about it already
Please do! I like bacon fine, but I am so sick of people adding it to things that are not improved by it. Bacon should not be a component of chocolate, donuts, (some types of) salads, bowls, or bras.
*hands you Excalibur* THEN WRITE THAT PIECE
dreeeeeeam the impossible dreeeeeeeeeaaaaammmm
Wait, do you have to USE Excallibur as the pen? ‘Cause that’s gonna take a while is all I’m saying.
“I… just… damn it, I’m running out of plowed land to drag this hand-and-a-half sword through in giant letters. Will The Toast accept a photo of “KALE RULZ BACON DROOLZ” carved into the ground?”
How well do exaggerated eye rolls transfer to the written word?
No, I hate bacon too. And then people tell me sprouts would be improved by it. Multiplying negatives only makes a positive in maths, not foods.
Yeah. Granted, I’m very sensitive to food and diet-related topics, but I found this so buried in judgement and derision about how people eat that I had a real hard time getting through it. I would have liked less “look at how dumb these people are who eat kale” and more “kale is so awful, let me tell you how entirely awful it is, it should be used exclusively as plate dressing”.
I liked the way this author started to address a thing I’ve noticed in big cities where there’s some kind of food evil twin thing going on. On the one hand you have these extreme diet foods, people eating no gluten at all, or drinking only juices and on the other there’s this glorification of bacon and donuts and eating cronuts and so on. There was maybe a bit of a judging tone in it, about people who eat some of column A and some of Column B and think they balance, but I think there’s some reason to get exasperated at that trend. At least in my city there is a real segment of people eating “artisan” pork belly coated burgers and cheese covered fries one day and the next day declaring their sensitivity to wheat and ostentatiously going on juice fasts, and it can be a bit exasperating. Especially if you want to eat somewhere that’s in the middle of this spectrum.
I think if more people just only worried about themselves, this would not be a problem.
Not sure what we’d have left of the internet, then. Cat photos? Work emails?
But they are our friends! And we have to choose a restaurant together!
“Chief say chard thing even worse in Brooklyn.”
Okay I’m sure I have brought this piece up before but it’s so good.
Thank you for linking it, because I have not seen it before and it is hilarious.
This is why this is a series, no? Dismantling doesn’t need to be done all in one piece. I thought it was funny. I’ve also seen articles with the “enough about bacon, already,” so… I can’t tell if that comment was trolling, either.
Love the article; you are so, SO right about the folly of using certain foods as “magic bullets” to atone for perceived (food) misdeeds. That said, Klae ain’t so bad as you make it out to be. It *is* a tough customer, but:
-don’t forget about/maybe you should try Lacinato or “dino” kale. tastes a little better, but way more importantly it is much more flat and tender like lettuce; no need to “choke down” big curly brambles of it. I straight up will _not_ eat any other kind of kale raw, and even this kind only if dressed properly.
-quiche/spanikopita: I lump these together because they’re both pies, but the point is the same. Trimmed, soft pieces of kale are indispensable to both these dishes. spinach is bland and soggy and inferior in every way for these brunch staples.
-soup: all other leafy greens (looking at you again spinach. why won’t you just stay raw?) disintegrate uselessly in long-cooking bean or potato based soups. Kale’s bitterness dulls to a pleasant “tangy” and its fibrousness (if properly trimmed: so many people seem intent on trying to eat the inedible stems. why?) is reduced to slight chewiness.
TLDR: you are right about insane “health obsessed” kale eaters, but I don’t agree that it has no place in cuisine.
Kale in soup is the jam! Kale salad is the jam as well, b/c you can make a big batch and it keeps well overnight, for days. Perfect for work lunch. A nice, rich, fatty dressing is key to my enjoyment of this, however, and lots of avocado. Maybe avocado IN the dressing.
Also I wish bugs didn’t love kale: mine has faced battalions of lurid green worms that will eat half a plant overnight, easy. The bastards.
Lacinato kale is FANTASTIC. Yes, it deserves all caps from me because I think I eat Lacinato Kale in some form at least every other day.
“At a function where the entree choices were beef or chicken I ordered a special vegetarian plate and ended up with a plate full of…[v] egetables without sauce, seasoning or discernable flavor. I guess I should have been grateful the kitchen staff hadn’t just set down a leafy tree branch for me to nibble on.”
BEEN THERE. Looks, restaurant chefs, if you can’t cook vegetables, you can’t cook. Feed me something that tastes.
I have no strong feelings about kale, but I do have strong feelings about vegetarian fare at events, apparently.
Mr Iceberg got handed a plate of prawns on one memorable occasion:
Mr Iceberg: Uhh, I ordered the vegetarian meal?
Waiter: Yeah. *indicates plate of prawns*
Mr Iceberg: But.. they have faces?
Hahaha, this is like my grandmother.
Me: “I’m not gonna have any of the turkey at Thanksgiving tonight, I’m vegetarian.”
Her: “Oh, that’s okay! I have meatballs in the freezer.”
Oma, meat is in the word. C’mon now.
Dad, talking to a vegan neighbor…
“Have a pepperoni pizza!”
“Sir, I’m vegan.”
“Have a sausage pizza!”
Dads!
I have been handed both a slab of tofu with a bit of sauce drizzled across the top and, another time, a plate full of mushrooms–just sauteed mushrooms. I like both of these things mixed in with a bunch of other stuff, but that was taking it TOO FAR.
The number of times we’ve gone out w/ the vegetarian side of the family only to have them face down a plate of un-sauced pasta and warm carrot/broccoli/pea medley cannot be counted. I wonder how they manage to go out to dinner at all.
(I mean, except for at Tex-Mex places, which is one of the reasons we always go for Tex-Mex when they visit us in Texas.) (Other reasons: margaritas. chips/salsa. queso. guac. warm tortillas from the fun tortilla-making machine. etc.)
On a roadtrip round mainland Greece, the vegetarians were repeatedly given just a pepper on a plate. Sometimes it was stuffed, sometimes it was not. At any mention of vegetarianism or alternative options, the kitchen just looked panicked and once offered an extra pepper.
I went to Greece in high school and our guide asked if any of us were vegetarians. None of us were, which was “good, because sometimes restaurants don’t have a fish option.”
This is my life. I’ve ordered the pasta with one vegetable before (the only option) and when the kitchen is out of said vegetable, they just give me plain pasta and charge me $15. Usually I only go to these places when someone else is paying (work thingy, etc).
In Italy, I was served two giant mozzarella balls. No bread or anything. Some meat eater had the balls (hahah) to ask me for one of them. There is no wrath like a vegetarian who does not have a choice for food.
I once got a plate with three carrot sticks, a single broccoli chunk, a single cauliflower chunk, and a spear of red pepper for dinner. At a heavy-drinking banquet. It was… a rough night.
Yes, and (restaurant chefs) if you can’t rise to the challenge of throwing together a simple but tasty vegetarian or vegan meal, you have no business calling yourself a chef. We’re not talking fancy French sauces here. All we ask is a little seasoning and YES YOU CAN ADD OIL. Vegan does not mean “only eats sticks and steamed vegetables.”
This does not seem like a whimsically held position
I love kale and therefore you are wrong. To be fair, though, I have a very very high tolerance for bitter greens and okra is the only vegetable I’ve eaten and not liked. On one very happy day one of the farmer’s at the farmer’s market gave me a pile of some leafy green thing for free because it turned out so bitter he couldn’t sell it. It was excellent.
I’m interested in this: I too love the dark leafy greens, of every kind. I wonder if this has to do with one’s tolerance for oxalic acid, which to be fair to all haters, is a anti-eating evolutionary tactic.
Isn’t oxalic acid the stuff that Barkeeper’s Friend is made out of?
It IS! In abundance, it really isn’t very good for you, which is why our vet told us not to give our dog too many dark leafy greens. (He, too, loves kale, and we were giving him the trimmings and were sort of bragging about how funny it is that he begs for greens and the vet shut us right down.)
Possibly something to do with the supertaster thing?
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biolo…
I can taste PTC and I do hate bitter greens. Sprouts can die horribly, and no I won’t have one on my plate ‘because it’s christmas’.
“These people have to be stopped– or abide by the following rule: if you bring salad to the potluck, salad is the only thing you are allowed to eat at the potluck.”
Okay. This is the way it usually works out for me, anyway.
Yup. If I don’t bring my own vegetables, etc. to holidays, I don’t eat.
the extreme “cleanses” and “clean eating” (the old name was “crash diets”)
THANK YOU
I love bitter greens and kale is my favorite of all of them. However, I acknowledge that my kale love does not exist in a vacuum, and the current climate of kale appreciation is at Health Halo levels. I do not wish to be a kalevangelist so I will not discuss my favorite kale recipes here.
With apologies for the uninvited self-promo, kale skeptics may wish to join me in looking at kale through Bourdieu’s food space concept, or wondering why collard greens aren’t as popular even though they are equally nutritious bitter greens (jk we know why).
Collards need more appreciation. Especially their pee (potlikker).
YEESSSSSS
I actually have really enjoyed collards the times I’ve had them, should I just stick to them? Pretty sure they’re not as crazy expensive as kale.
Kale SHOULD NOT be expensive. It is just as hardy and easy to grow as collards. It may not be as abundant in your hemisphere right now–it tends to be a cold season vegetable–but yeah, if your kale is costlier than collards, don’t bother!
I find kale more versatile than collards, though. I pretty much like collards two ways–simmered in fatty broth Southern-US-style or simmered in coconut milk Indonesian-style–but I like kale roasted, grilled, sauteed, braised, raw, pickled, and so on.
Collard is usually a little more expensive as kale, but it depends on the grocery store. However, you can prepare them the same way so of you want variation kale would be good to add. There are different types of kale with different textures which is fun, but if it isnt easily available (it should be at any major grocery store) then don’t bother.
In our neck of the woods kale and collards (and mustard greens and swiss chard) are all about the same price. Collards are soo much easier to prep, though, since they’re all nice and flat. Kale is a pain.
I’ve never had collard greens 🙁 They don’t sell them in rural Canadian grocery stores. Are they as cold tolerant as kale? Maybe I can grow them.
I am not 100% sure about Canada, but it’s definitely a cold-hardy vegetable in Pennsylvania’s grow zone. We have it all year round and more of it during the chilly ends of farmshare season.
I love collards! I would eat more collards if a) my neighborhood market sold them more often, b) I could eat them raw, like I do kale, and/or c) if they didn’t take so long to cook. Collards need a little more time and tlc then I have on a week night.
My frustration with kale is that it’s crowding out all the bitter greens that I like better than kale–broccoli rabe, mustard greens and turnip greens. The place that I used to find them at the grocery store is now dedicated entirely to Kale, and has been for the past two years. I like kale fine, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of winter greens.
I love kale (srsly gimme dat shit, I munch it raw) but this was totally and hilariously on-point, especially the part about how eating kale somehow erases past food sins.
I totally do this – like, make a big badass pot of bacon mac and cheese with Ritz crackers on top, but mix in kale so I feel better about myself. Whatever. #nutrients
I like kale, but mostly after it’s been cooked for a really long time, and in creamy, otherwise relatively unhealthy dishes (kale & butternut squash gratin, a creamy carrot, mushroom, and kale stoup)….so basically I am this article. “Having something creamy & cheesy & fatty? Throw some kale in, feel less like you might as well inject that melted mozzarella and gruyere directly into your arteries!”
I (whispers) like kale, but also enjoyed reading this sentence this morning: “Of course a person having a major health crisis lying in a sickbed is the perfect candidate for a kale smoothie: too weak to swat the proffered drink away, perhaps dehydrated and desperate enough to try to take a sip, the way lost hikers in the desert try to drink their own urine.”
I’m not a fan of kale, but those that are can keep on keepin’ on, ’cause it’s not my business what they do and do not eat. It’s the evangelism around kale (and other food choices/fad diets/etc) is the problem, not the food itself. It’s one thing to say “kale has nutritional value so I would like to incorporate it when I can’ and an ENTIRELY OTHER THING to be like “kale is something you should eat because [shaming about your current food habits].”
My problem with kale mostly originates with a vegetarian roommate, who, while a fantastic cook, would make too many things with kale and not wash it sufficiently. So there’d always be a tiny bit of grit. Also, disappointment:
“Hey BourneApprox, I made stuffed pizza for dinner!”
😀
“…and it’s filled with delicious kale!”
D:
A bait and switch! That’s just mean.
“Vital Vitality!” is hilarious
Also terrible: people who say that kale is good if you massage it. I should not have to massage my vegetables! I will peel, I will shuck, I will wash, but I need to draw the line somewhere!
I have never in my life massaged kale (or any other vegetable). WTF. Only thing in the kitchen that deserves a massage is ME.
Ok, sure, kale, blargh. But no guys, it’s really fun to poop after eating a bunch of kale.
Kale is the WORST. We need to leave it to the rabbits. Apparently they love it. (and then we kill the rabbits)
This seemed more like kale-eaters trolling than kale-trolling. I like kale, and I agree that the kale-worship we have today is over the top, but can’t we just talk about what a pain it is to CONSTANTLY pull those damn leaves off the stem? Has anyone in the history of ever eaten a kale stem and not half-choked on it? And why does Trader Joe’s sell chopped up bags of kale with the stems ON? WHY!?
oh my GOD I could have written this. I’ve bought those “convenience” bags of TJ’s chopped kale and ended up spending just as much time picking out the stems!
Sometimes I chop up the stems and saute them for a few minutes before adding the leaves. Same thing with chard. I lived to tell the tale.
Actually, there’s a really easy technique to getting rid of the stem. I learned it from a chef friend. You just make a c-shape with your right hand, start at the bottom of the stem, and just squeeze the leaf off the stem with your hand, if that makes sense. It goes really fast.
Then you can roll the kale into a big cigar shape and chop, and you get nicely diced strips really fast.
I had to eat kale a lot as a child because my grandma was still cooking like it was 1947 and there was nothing else to eat (except potatos obvs). So when I first read about kale being the new cool thing, I laughed at my computer screen, because, you know, who on earth would be eating that voluntarily. It’s bitter, slimy and generally awful, but if you trust my grandma, nutritious and cheap. Kale shakes and anything baked with kale in it made me instantly remember my grandmas “war food”, so I probably stay away from it, but those kale chips seem nice. They don’t taste like kale and maybe if I close my eyes, I can pretend it doesn’t look like it.
I first encountered kale as “the thing people put in their window boxes in the winter.” I was a grazer, so I asked my mom if it was edible – and as parents of grazers learn to do, she said it wasn’t.
I was also surprised to see it become big.
Winter CSA + Stockholm Syndrome = kale worship
Another reason not to eat kale is that one time I was washing some kale and I looked closer and the stems were COATED IN THOUSANDS OF TINY CLEAR BUGS, which are apparently aphids but look like lice. Vomit.
protein! 🙂
I AM EATING A DELICIOUS HOMEMADE KALE SALAD RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT SO COME AT ME BRO
Though I mean, eat what you like, you know? I won’t force my kale on anyone because we all got stuff we don’t care to eat and that’s ok.
here is the thing about kale. there is a variety of kale called dinosaur kale. dinosaur!
it is also called lacinato kale, but that is stupid. dinosaurs!
I guess I like foods with cute names?
I started eating arugula after I found out its other name is rocket!
I starting eating swiss chard because it came in pretty colors. So, I feel you.
In my household we like to call arugula “rocket” and then giggle. It seems like such a 90s pseudo-gourmet attempt at rebranding. “You may think you don’t like arugula but have you tried…rocket?!”
I was at a point of eating kale 5-7 times a week (though never in a smoothie – DEAR GOD NEVER IN A SMOOTHIE!!), and then I got pregnant and can’t even stand to be in the same house with it, or any of it’s relatives (goodbye, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, arugula, brussels sprouts, etc., etc. etc.). Guess I’ve had enough?
I’d say, rather, that you’re FED UP WITH KALE.
I would take lemon sorbet over chocolate ice cream any day.
“I remember one scene in which farm laborers sang, to the rhythmic hack of their hoes against the clay-colored, hard ground of a steep hill, a haunting song that expressed the vain hope they might be able to grow something besides kale. At least, I think that’s what they were singing about: I don’t speak Portuguese. Also Portuguese people wouldn’t have been eating kale all these years if they hadn’t combined it with sausage to mask the taste.”
Okay, I’m not going to lie, kale is definitely improved by Portuguese sausage, but everything is improved by Portuguese sausage. Put it on your turkey sandwiches after holidays; it makes a turkey sandwich actually delicious instead of dry and sad.
I eat kale all the time, though, in and out of Portuguese soup, and I’m glad that it’s suddenly ubiquitous because now I can actually make caldo verde whenever I want it instead of being delighted when kale shows up in the grocery store once a month.
(I did enjoy this piece, though. Almost as much as I enjoy kale)
I only had kale once, at a vegan smoothie place that my bro Kate worked at in NY. I drank it and it was pretty good… until my tongue started tingling and my throat closed up and I wheezed all the way back home. Burn kale, i say. Give it the stone cold stunner
Is the bitterness of kale one of those genetic taste receptor things? Because it doesn’t really taste bitter to me – mainly like really tough grass.
::clears throat::
Okay. So. There is another negative aspect to kale, which is that too much of it (particularly raw) gives some of us with, ahem, sensitive digestion, a bad time in the, uh, lower tract region. Which is a thing to keep in mind if, say, you’re going to have a refreshing kale smoothie for breakfast and then go for a long jog. Just approach with some caution, that’s all I’m saying.
My issue with kale is that Whole Foods puts it into ALL of their prepared foods. This holiday seasons, I could only get creamed kale, or creamed kale and spinach. But no creamed spinach, as it Right and Proper. Too far, kale, too far.
I would love to print out copies of this article and post them on the doors of various eating places all over town. The other day my bf and I went out for breakfast, and I ordered the eggs Florentine, and instead of spinach, it had kale. What’s wrong with spinach? You’re so perfectly right that it’s the new oat bran.
Also, mango sorbet IS an adequate substitute for chocolate ice cream. I don’t know about lemon.
My mother apparently lives on kale morning, noon, and night. Vile stuff raw, but if sauteed with enough tamari, it’s at least palatable enough to choke down with a smile.
OH NO!!!!! SO MANY COMMENTS! I feel almost bad adding another, *espexially* because, well, er, it’s not an argument, or even a rebuttal, but perhaps an aside. Here goes:
Your New England friend was right, because kale gets sweeter after a frost or two. It’s the one thing that the Kale People have done correctly!
Otherwise, bang on.
All the ways that people think to use kale (chips, smoothies) to be “healthy” are terrible, but I do think that many of its original uses are still good times: cooked, sauteed, put in soup. It holds up better in soup than spinach certainly. But keep it out of brownies and gosh if you’re going to eat chips eat real ones. Though using kale chips on leftover chicken sandwiches isn’t bad in a pinch. But, yeah, kale doesn’t need to be in every goddamn thing.
Marinating is one thing and I do that too. But as I understand it some people are literally giving their kale a rubdown, which…no.
Carrot halwa! Traditional Indian dessert made from shredded carrots with milk (I tend to use coconut milk), sugar, and cardamom. Great to top with craisins (not-so-traditional) or mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, pistaschios). There are deep red carrots that come into season during the winter in northern India that are sweet and gorgeous, but halwa is still pretty tasty with regular carrots. I think you can also use/ add shredded beets, but I haven't eaten one like that.
yes! And you can drink that green mineral-y smelling water, or if you don't want to, then add it to soups and stock when you're cooking something in stock. As I learned from M.F. K. Fisher, who would know.
yeah, no, I don't want kale chips. Regular kale is just fine. 🙂
you might really like those korean crispy seaweed squares that are being sold everywhere, though!
Actually, there's a really easy technique to getting rid of the stem. I learned it from a chef friend. You just make a c-shape with your right hand, start at the bottom of the stem, and just squeeze the leaf off the stem with your hand, if that makes sense. It goes really fast.
Then you can roll the kale into a big cigar shape and chop, and you get nicely diced strips really fast.
protein! 🙂
The thing about kale, like most green leafies, is that it's actually really tasty if you do the work. I think too many of us are forced into smiling through kale salads or sautéed kale made by health-trending pals who don't know what they're doing. You've gotta rinse it REALLY well, trim off the woody stems, and to eliminate most of the bitterness, blanch in heavily-salted water for 30 seconds before sautéing. It makes all the difference in the world, and actually makes kale taste good – not just "acceptable" or "tolerable," even to supertasters like my ex, who wouldn't go near broccoli if it were the last food on earth. Also, echoing above that dino/lacinato/Tuscan kale is milder and easier to cook (no need to blanch this one).
Ultimately, green leafy vegetables are really, really, nutritionally crucial. The downside of the "kale craze," as perfectly evoked in this piece, is that people look at a food like kale – or the current craze for restaurants elevating their vegetable game in general – as a trend, not as something that's an excellent gateway for adding more much-needed greens to our diets. It's a shame Thanks for this!
You know, I've read that a hundred times in How to Cook a Wolf, but I only tried it once, years and years ago, to revolting effect.
That's not leftovers-squeamishness talking. I routinely make broth from the scraped-off bits and knobby trims of vegetables. But this kale run-off was inedible: bitter and deeply tangy in a most unpleasant way.
But I'm reconsidering: maybe it was just that batch of greens, and maybe I should try it again.
I would eat kale if it massaged *me*.
I never had kale until last year, when my housemate got a CSA and most of the cooking of it fell to me. It wasn’t terrible, but I’ve decided I can live the rest of my life just fine without it.